Ep. #819 - WTF is an NFT?

00:00.00

Matt DeCoursey

And we’re back for another episode of Startup Hustle. Matt DeCoursey, here with Matt Watson. Hi, Matt. Oh just trying to figure out how to buy and sell jpegs and get rich. Okay.

00:07.20

Matt Watson

What’s going on man.

00:15.23

Matt Watson

Dude, I’ve been buying all these monkeys and I think I’m gonna be a billionaire. No, I’m not, I get all the well, I mean some are Chimpanzees, Orangutans, and Spider monkeys.

00:17.99

Matt DeCoursey

I think those are apes, bro you’ve been buying. You’ve been buying Board Monkeys wrong. That’s the wrong one? Yeah, I got I got.

00:32.88

Matt Watson

Bored Spider Monkeys. That’s what I’m investing in. Did I get scammed shit? Damn it.

00:36.13

Matt DeCoursey

Ah, got bad news for you, Matt. Yeah, probably I know but you know that brings up the real question of wtf is an n f t. And that’s the topic of today’s episode before we get too far into that today’s episode a Startup Hustle is sponsored by Canva where you go to collaborate and create an amazing graphic design for free whether it’s a presentation to share an idea a video to launch your business or a social post to start a conversation with Canva you can design anything. Maybe even nfts discover the magic of visual communication and how Canva helps you create a lasting impact today. Just go to Canvas dot com yeah I was just using Canva last night actually mad I was ah I was creating a presentation. Yeah.

01:21.30

Matt Watson

I was gonna say you’re the best. You’re the best graphic artist I know because of Canva.

01:29.48

Matt DeCoursey

That’s true. It’s been that way for years. So that’s why when they wanted to sponsor Startup Hustle. Yeah I know I know doing it well, that’s probably good but no man it really did and it changed a lot of things for me I was using it last night.

01:32.19

Matt Watson

Your secret is out.

01:45.81

Matt DeCoursey

Create a presentation about the management platform that we built for full scale. So yeah, well Matt what’s an NFT.

01:53.59

Matt Watson

Um, well it’s a non-fungical, non-fugal token Fungible Fungal conjugal.

02:01.66

Matt DeCoursey

Conjugal; I think that’s the kind of visit you get in prison. Oh anyway.

02:08.75

Matt Watson

Now that’s conjugal. Ah oh my God well.

02:18.10

Matt DeCoursey

But now what? what? what is an NFT? Well, I have a definition of it because I’ll tell you it’s a non-fungible token also known as an NFT. It’s a digital asset that represents real-world objects. It could be art music. Ingame items videos and they’re bought and sold online. They’re typically the transactions that occur.

02:20.47

Matt Watson

Okay.

02:35.51

Matt Watson

Okay, but wait a second so we’re talking about a non-fungible token. What is a fungible token I can tell you something like the Us dollar in your bank account?

02:37.53

Matt DeCoursey

Using Cryptocurrency. Yeah.

02:42.38

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, that’s a good question that that is a good question. Go yeah.

02:54.76

Matt Watson

Right? You’ve got lots of them. You have one too many of them 1 to billions of dollars in your bank account and none of them are unique. They’re just all dollars basically right? But if you had paper money with a serial number on it now those are kind of more non-fun right? because everyone’s a unique 1 right? And so.

03:11.29

Matt DeCoursey

Okay.

03:14.16

Matt Watson

If you take this and think about cryptocurrency in the blockchain bitcoin is a fungible token right? I can have one of them I can have less than one of them I can send to you. You could send it to me none of them are unique you know you just put them in a pile right? like there’s no nothing unique about them. Like you just have one too many of these things so an Nft or a non-fungible token and this is and this is really getting in the definition of something being fungible right? That’s really the definition here of what we’re talking about at the moment non-fungible keywords non-fungible is that it’s a unique token. Basically, I mean you could think about it. A Qr code or a serial number or it’s just a unique thing on the blockchain. It’s literally like a really really large number like a giant number like 2 followed by like thousands of zeros basically of a unique identifier that’s a unique thing. Like you said it could be ah, anything. It could be a piece of land. It could be a picture of a monkey. It could be whatever.

04:16.26

Matt DeCoursey

It could be a music art. I mean there’s a whole list I’ve got a whole list here. It’s everything from digital artwork music videos animation images meaning actual photos Clip Art Twitter posts. Um. Virtual shoes there you go tacos This is kind of crazy farts are on this list. I mean if that if we can yeah if I can sell farts Dude I don’t need to do this show anymore and I don’t need to go to work more? yeah.

04:37.22

Matt Watson

E.

04:45.78

Matt Watson

Wait a second; a non-fungible fart. Wow! yes.

04:55.47

Matt DeCoursey

Also so you know sports highlights collectibles virtual avatars video game skins. Um, I mean and then you and then you know when you get under the underneath all of those there are a zillion different things and I was joking at the beginning because. We’ve been joking a lot as we prepared for this so you know this is the first episode of a 10-part series about and nfts and I dove in I dove right in right? So I went I bought nfts I sold and NFTs I created an NFT did a whole lot of that and. Um, there’s something to this and then there’s also quite honestly, there’s something weird about it at the same time we’ll get into some of that because some of this stuff really makes sense for a lot of people now when we say a lot of people I have a stat here that said that. It was 66% of us population said they did not know what an Nft is and 23% of people who okay so so 66% of America says they don’t know what an NFT is. And then I think 30% of America is lying and says they know what an Nft is and then 4% actually know does sound about right? I think somebody does so anyway so of the.

06:14.50

Matt Watson

I don’t think anybody really knows.

06:22.93

Matt DeCoursey

Now you know this sounded a little low to me but ah, according to these same stats and this came this one came from a statista 23% of people who collect and Nfts in us are millennials I thought they’d be a lot higher than at 23% or that it should be higher.

06:33.63

Matt Watson

That sounds about right. Oh, wait.

06:43.46

Matt DeCoursey

I mean I would think millennials would be the ones that would be on this yeah way higher. So anyway and then nearly $41000000000 worth of crypto was spent in exchanges.

06:46.99

Matt Watson

Yeah, you’re right I think the number would be higher.

07:00.47

Matt Watson

So so let’s talk about the fundamentals of this a little more for a second. So Nfts are used on the blockchain and so I recorded an episode the other day about what is crypto and you guys could listen to that we talk more about.

07:00.70

Matt DeCoursey

Our NFT marketplace is in 2021

07:07.78

Matt DeCoursey

Yep.

07:18.99

Matt Watson

Ah, cryptocurrency and bitcoin and the blockchain and stuff like that. That’s ah, another great episode but basically, nfts build on top of blockchain technology. Um, not bitcoin though. So but you know bitcoin is a different type of Blockchain that is basically only a fungible token. It’s just like a currency. Basically right. Like digital gold or whatever you want to think about it. Um, but then there’s a whole another world of blockchains Ethereum being the biggest and most well-known one that all these Nfts are built on top of and then there are other blockchains that do inf like basically all the blockchains do Nftts now that um. Do smart contracts and code and all this stuff outside of bitcoin and the like currency-based ones. Um, but so they’re building on top of the blockchain now. What’s interesting about that is the blockchain is decentralized and potentially nobody controls it and it all runs magically on the internet somewhere right. So I can basically upload a picture of something and mint. It is what it’s called when you when creating an Nft and then it forever lives on the blockchain like forever like you can’t make it go away. It’s just there and then somebody owns it. And you can transfer ownership of this thing from 1 person to another but you can’t seize it. You can’t sanction it. You can’t take it away. The government can’t take it away it forever lives on the blockchain and that’s one of the great things about no-no.

08:43.30

Matt DeCoursey

You can’t erase it or forge it either which is the key thing. So I’ll but I’ll be a definitions guy here for a minute so blockchains are the system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change hack or cheat the system. So you know when you hear when we hear like non-fungible tokens and where they use like you can start by beginning if you want we want to start at you know like wtf as an NFT. it’s digital authenticity it’s you know you have that certificate of authenticity that says that Matt Watson signed your baseball. Well here’s the thing if that’s just a piece of paper with a stamp on it. We could make those all day I’ve been selling fake Matt Watson autographs for years with certificates of authenticity I mean that’s part of how I paid for my home just kidding on that.

09:17.59

Matt Watson

It’s a public record.

09:25.32

Matt Watson

Um, yes, yeah. Yes, those are on eBay.

09:37.44

Matt DeCoursey

They’re not worth anything otherwise I would have been doing that. But with that the whole idea of the digital ledger. So if you think about there I don’t think there is 1 if anything it would need to be Matt Watson the gamer

09:42.12

Matt Watson

Oh, I thought you meant Matt Watson the baseball player there is yeah the Youtube star. Yes, anyways, sorry.

09:54.16

Matt DeCoursey

You google Matt Wattson that’s who you come up with the yeah, the streamer he’s probably getting paid in Nfts. But so when you talk about a digital ledger and why this stuff matters and this distributed network. What Matt’s talking about when he talks about these big serial numbers and everything is. They’re recorded in so many places that it becomes immutable meaning like you can’t erase it and you can’t change it or you could it would just be very very very very difficult now. The reason that that’s important is that in the specific case of like trading something unique. All right? So Matt and the listeners can’t. See this but behind me on the wall. You see these are original paintings that are in my office. Okay, they’re one of a kind and the only reason I can prove that they’re one of a kind is that they’re painted by hand right? So but there’s not so the thing is though if someone wanted to make it.

10:45.45

Matt Watson

Yep.

10:49.35

Matt DeCoursey

A whole bunch of prints of that or do something else the, ah the trail of authenticity begins to leave very quickly I’ll give you another example and this is not as much of it like a non-fungible token. So I own ah a baseball jersey that Eric Hosmer was wearing. When he got the hit that put the Kansas City Royals into the world series which they later won with that I’ve got like ah ah like a 3 d thing and like ah you know it’s got like a code and all this stuff where I have to go I can authenticate that at major league baseball. Okay.

11:21.77

Matt Watson

Yeah.

11:24.45

Matt DeCoursey

Now in this and now that was back in 2015 now that Jersey might actually come as with an nft attached to it which would maybe have a picture of it show it all of that and be able to show and then it’s also going to show the transaction history and stuff like that. So. The basic tenant’s a blockchain so then Matt was also talking about a smart contract. So a smart contract is a program that’s also stored on the but blockchain that runs when predetermined conditions are met. Okay, so that could be any number of things and this is what developers in the world of technology is really excited about. Because contracts all right? So Matt if I buy if I buy that my house there’s paperwork stored somewhere and there’s a title stored somewhere else and there’s another one stored somewhere else and if those are all gone life becomes kind of a pain in the butt.

12:16.81

Matt Watson

This is.

12:18.75

Matt DeCoursey

Right? So the digital the digital transaction history of certain things including transfer of title deed ownership and all that stuff being stored in the blockchain is a better way to do it so they typically automate execution of these agreements in a way that participants can. Immediately arrive at an outcome that they want without intermediaries or time loss involved like Matt if you and I wanted to do a smart contract right? now we wanted to sign it. Well it may put the notary public out of business right.

12:52.50

Matt Watson

Um, well in the and the the key to the blockchain and nfs like you take your example of your Hozmer Jersey is the Nfts are really all about a digital asset right? and instead of a physical real world asset. It’s really the the yet.

13:04.63

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, yeah, most of the time. Yeah, most of the time. Yeah.

13:11.48

Matt Watson

Yeah, it’s it’s really more about the digital assets and a great example of this is Nba top shots and Nba top shots if you’ve never heard of it. You can go to the website and check it out. Basically it is short video clips of the highlights of different Nba Basketball games and so just think if you could have bought a video clip of homer stealing home base right? and you could say look I own the video clip of hosmer stealing home based now that sounds really weird like why would you want to own that but you can.

13:44.83

Matt DeCoursey

I.

13:45.20

Matt Watson

And that’s what Nba top shots is but that could be like Nba top shots of like okay Lebron James shot the 3 point shot to win. You know the championship game or whatever and like I want to own that video clip and you could say I’m the owner of the video clip which still seems weird but you can own the video clip and you. Could you would have the digital rights basically on the blockchain proving that you’re the one who bought it and you’re the one who owns it and nobody can could contest it and that and that’s the value of nfts in the blockchain.

14:15.82

Matt DeCoursey

So I give I’ll give you another example and this is as old school as it gets so somewhere in the last ten years painting was discovered that was believed to be a lost work of art from Leon ah Leonardo da vinci. Do you know about this.

14:31.31

Matt Watson

I Don’t think so.

14:34.46

Matt DeCoursey

It was purchased. It was in very part. There was so Leonardo da vinci only painted ah about a dozen and a half paintings somewhere in that ballpark right? because he had entrepreneurial add he got good at something and then he went to go do something else. So once he got good at painting he then went on to do something else.

14:43.92

Matt Watson

Near here.

14:51.22

Matt DeCoursey

But there was a couple of these that were unaccounted for so ah, a painting surfaced somewhere in an auction house in New Orleans of all places and someone bought it for like 2 like 2 grand and then it went through a restoration process at which point they believed. It was. Ah, davinci painting and then it got all controversial because it got sold for like $80000000 after that and then someone else paid like like $400000000 for it now here’s the thing is this whole that whole chain of art There’s no there’s no ah what do they call it. It’s it’s that they can’t track the history of it. There’s no pedigree with it and they have a different word for that. But provenance or something like that you know so the thing is is this painting is like highly controversial and a lot of people just think it’s not really what it is because they can’t really track the history of it.

15:43.69

Matt Watson

Yeah.

15:45.97

Matt DeCoursey

Now this happens a lot with art. So like it’s It’s largely believed that a lot of the art that you’ll see at big museums and stuff like that might be fake because you can’t drag it.

15:57.72

Matt Watson

I’m working on a I’m working on a da vinci painting myself in my basement I didn’t want everybody to know that. But it’s actually a da vinci painting my kids are finishing. It don’t tell anybody but we’re gonna find it as a da vinci painting and we’re gonna sell it.

16:01.61

Matt DeCoursey

Is it of me.

16:11.56

Matt DeCoursey

Is it Michael da vinci or Leonardo or is ah just one. Okay, it yeah, but so here’s the thing. So now you look at this now now one of the things that really made Nft Mania kind of hit the mainstream. So there’s a well-known artist named beele.

16:15.27

Matt Watson

Yes, yeah, Michael somebody. Yeah.

16:31.70

Matt DeCoursey

And he sold and so he sold a work of art. So this guy’s so beeles made like thousands of paintings and then he used little tiny versions of all of them and arranged them in a way that made ah and a digital portrait of something. Got sixty nine million bucks for that at Christie’s now here’s the thing though. That’ll never be in dispute because it’s on the blockchain so when they when that that became a tokenized asset as long I mean so you know.

16:51.26

Matt Watson

That’s just crazy.

17:06.10

Matt DeCoursey

Wherever whenever however down the road. There’s no, there’s no, there’s no uncertainty because that transaction record was saved and can prove it. Yeah correct.

17:12.50

Matt Watson

As long as yeah and whoever the owner is can prove that they the owner because of their their their private key on the blockchain right? like your private key which which people refer to as their wallet but it’s it’s not really a wallet. It’s really your private key. It’s your keys.

17:24.65

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, yeah.

17:31.29

Matt Watson

Um, as long as you have the key your keys to the blockchain you can prove that you’re the owner of whatever the thing is.

17:35.68

Matt DeCoursey

So it’s now some of this stuff is rapidly evolving so you know the first the first digital artist. Ah that a guy named Kevin Mccoy meanted the first known Nft which was called quantum and that was back in 142 so this isn’t this isn’t totally new, but it’s new-ish. Um, so you know and so basically once again and nftts give ownership bragging rights of that digital item. Um, but in in many cases, the creator can still retain the copyright and the reproduction rights. So. Um, that was so you we were talking about apes monkeys orangutans and stuff like that. So a lot of times these things have also become a status symbol. So the the board apich club which bayc which is what we were joking about because these.

18:22.72

Matt Watson

Probably the most famous one at this point it in crypto punks it in crypto punks are the most are the most well known and then there’s there’s some other ones too. But those are the 2 big ones.

18:26.42

Matt DeCoursey

Well oh yeah, without a doubt it’s the one with the most hype right now Cryptopunks too.

18:34.85

Matt DeCoursey

Well so the recently the board Ape yacht club that company I think it’s called Yuga Yuga Labs or something like that they acquired cryptounks and then they actually gave their users. The rights to the actual image.

18:41.16

Matt Watson

Um.

18:53.44

Matt Watson

They gave up the intellectual property rights.

18:53.57

Matt DeCoursey

Which was a big thing because that’s the thing is’s like so some of these things are selling. These are so like Eminem bought one of the board apes that actually resembles him for like one point four million now with that. They also just recently announced apecoin which they’ve.

19:00.17

Matt Watson

Um, which is crazy. A.

19:10.88

Matt DeCoursey

Ble out they created an actual cryptocurrency now at the time of this recording. It’s honestly still a little hazy about what apecoin is actually good for now. Yeah, yeah, and there’s a lot a lot of this up.

19:15.96

Matt Watson

Um, well aren’t they talking about creating like a a metaverse project or something to and or games and they’re want createing like a whole brand right? like because I’m a whole brand.

19:27.33

Matt DeCoursey

A lot of this all leads into it now you know with with board ape as a purveyor of hype meaning like I you know I’ve been known to to buy expensive shoes or something like that I understand the digital exclusivity but 1 of the things I’ve really realized about nfts is that until something. Tangible or something is attached to it. They the value of them is a little questionable unless they’re like it’s like beeles’ thing you know like so you’ve seen a ah.

19:55.26

Matt Watson

Well I mean the the question of all art is tangible right? like my my kids bring home art and just like yours from so they bring home art from school every week as it were something or is it not worth something. Why is the Mona Lisa worth something why is van gogh paintings worth something. Like they’re only worth something because people believe they’re worth something because there’s a marketplace for them and digital art is the same way. Yeah.

20:16.88

Matt DeCoursey

True. Well you you can say that about anything though I mean you can say that about anything like a banana is only worth what someone’s willing to pay for it.

20:26.28

Matt Watson

Yeah, and so did like I don’t understand why people would pay millions of dollars for Nfts of board apes and all this stuff but there are people that do and so because there is there’s a marketplace for it.

20:35.87

Matt DeCoursey

I did I I got it I got it on some level but then I really got it when they issued a coin that went with it because if you were a holder of a board. Ape You got a shitload of Ape coin which by the way. I bought So I mentioned I dove right into this So I bought $10000 with the Ape coin the other night actually right before right before I came over to your house. Um I the other night and I and I mentioned when I was there So I bought it and I sold it.

20:56.96

Matt Watson

Whoo.

21:06.83

Matt DeCoursey

Same day and I I have a net profit of about $1000 which I will be reporting and paying tax on. Yeah so speaking of things that you need to do on time as a reminder today’s episode of startup hustle is brought to you by canva with canva you can design.

21:08.88

Matt Watson

All right good for you better stop while you’re ahead.

21:26.58

Matt DeCoursey

Your ideas with ease get inspired with over half a million free templates and a rich content library that helps you and your team achieve your goals you can sign up and start designing for free at http://canva.com you know Matt if you wanted you could you could go to http://canva.com and you could create a design. And all original design the way that you wanted it. You could download it? Yeah well you could do whatever you want, you could put it in there and then you could go to a place like opensee so http://opensee.com is easily the most popular exchange.

21:47.11

Matt Watson

Um, it could even be squiggly aligned and.

22:01.20

Matt DeCoursey

For buyers and sellers of and nfts and there are other ones that are out there too. So you know, no, it’s not the only one but that’s the the real the real big one and you could upload that and turn it into an nftt in minutes. That doesn’t mean it’s valuable so that’s one way that people are doing it but you know so I so I spent I mentioned that I spent a lot of time exploring this because you know for those of you that might not be aware I worked in the music industry for about 10 years and I really am just a big advocate of anything that helps.

22:17.88

Matt Watson

Nope.

22:34.85

Matt DeCoursey

Creators and artists and musicians make money. So I’ve seen a few things along the way. Um about a year ago. My buddy Jake seninger from Umphreys Mcgee who’s ah, a world-class guitarist actually did a live performance like online and then sold he improvised. Ah, whole like 25 minute song and then they sold the Nft afterward I thought that was pretty cool. You’re seeing a lot of stuff like that the day after the Super Bowl snoop dog sold $44000000 worth of Nfts.

22:57.93

Matt Watson

M.

23:10.40

Matt Watson

It’s crazy man.

23:11.23

Matt DeCoursey

And you know so you see a lot of this going on now if you want to come over to Instagram and it’s at Decourseimat and I’ve been posting images. So here’s the thing I can’t connect my actual nftts to Instagram so I actually just end up taking a screenshot on my phone. And cropping it and then putting it on Instagram which is kind of the same effect of actually owning the image didn’t I see did didn’t you may or may not have had a board ape on your Twitter profile at 1 point but you didn’t buy a board ape.

23:41.64

Matt Watson

Oh yeah, my Twitter profiler is ah is a board ape. Yeah no, but I can still use the image and and that’s something we need to bring up like the whole thing with Nft art. There is no copyright like enforcement of any form.

23:50.57

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, right? Yeah yeah.

23:58.67

Matt Watson

With Nfts just because you’re an artist and you make board apes or whatever people can still copy them like it does not give you any copyright protection whatsoever. All it really does is give you a digital trail to say like I was the original creator and here’s all the people that have owned it and the trail of it.

24:03.16

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, true. Yeah.

24:13.23

Matt DeCoursey

And that’s definitely something that’s flawed now on the flip side of that. So if you go to out decourse amount at Twitter I did so Twitter this is where some of this is so let’s talk a little bit about where this is going and where people use some of this I actually so Twitter blue is a ah. Ah, like the beta program for Twitter. It’s like two bucks a month and with that I actually can attach an nftt and make that my profile so you can so I am a grandpa ape today at which is okay so let’s talk about that.

24:43.12

Matt Watson

And your grandpa ape. Yep.

24:53.14

Matt DeCoursey

So here’s 1 thing that’s kind of interesting I’ll tell you what Matt that sure does look a lot like a board ape doesn’t it. So I put I’ve posted these I’ve had a few of them I own a couple grandpa apes and I own. Ah ah an o g grandpa ape which was the original.

24:56.95

Matt Watson

It sure does it looks like an ape.

25:11.61

Matt DeCoursey

Grandpa Abe now look these things are still overpriced but that was certainly not a million dollars it was like a hundred but.

25:19.36

Matt Watson

Well I’m saving it on my computer right now for free hold on.

25:23.77

Matt DeCoursey

Right? Okay, so now it’s kind of interesting though because as I posted a couple of these on Facebook and Twitter and I was just goofing around I do like the one on my Twitter profile right now he’s wearing the evil canineval jacket he’s he’s I’m not he’s smoking something that’s either a blunt or a cigar and he’s wearing 3 d glasses.

25:33.19

Matt Watson

Yeah, it’s cool. Yeah, he’s cool.

25:43.72

Matt DeCoursey

So he’s looking good and he might be feeling good. He’s feeling good now. Now that said I’ve posted these just kind of goofing around on social and I’ve had multiple people ask me, they’re like did you buy ah a board ape. No this is literally a rip off of a board Ape. So.

25:45.90

Matt Watson

He’s cool. He’s very cool.

25:59.33

Matt Watson

He looks pretty damn cool to me.

26:02.66

Matt DeCoursey

You look at some of that too and it’s like okay so so there So bottom bottom line. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of Ape stuff out there so you can get a monkey and Orangutan they have all of a man and it’s so.

26:05.00

Matt Watson

Um, well and they say that and and yeah and and they say that in a lot of ways. Nfts they’re digital assets and to me I I best think of them as like their digital baseball cards. All. Right? It’s like you’re buying baseball cards almost they’re collectibles right? and there are a lot of people out there that love to collect shit like I don’t know why my mom likes to collect beanie babies or Mcdonald’s Toys and all this other shit. But now you got a generation of people that love to collect grandpa apes digital versions right? like but there.

26:24.88

Matt DeCoursey

Yep.

26:41.98

Matt Watson

They’re really pretty cool I think the grandpa the grandpa apes are pretty cool but I just not myself I’m not a collector of things So I kind of struggle with the with this part of it.

26:49.82

Matt DeCoursey

So and so allow me to explain how some of this works because you mentioned minting so that menting is is a process that occurs like so let’s say map decourse to the artist and what I’ll do is I’ll create. Like I mean you can create things a number of different ways right? So it could be a drawing. It could be a digital thing. There’s a lot of Nft generators out there and so a lot of this stuff is layered images and they start with a base character and then they just have all these random ah characteristics. That kind of get thrown around and they have different Ah they have different level of of they have a different level of ah yeah, like rarity and that’s what will drive that that’s what will drive the the value.

27:31.10

Matt Watson

Um, uniqueness rarity. Yeah.

27:41.37

Matt DeCoursey

Of it in many cases and you know and so yeah, you run into all these different things so you know it’s like some of them are are determined by the rarity or whatever but typically what’s going on with this is an an organization artist whoever says okay I’m going to mint five thousand nfts. And then they want you to do this actually reminds me a lot of like buying and set but the buying and selling of event tickets which was ah industry Matt and I have both worked and many years ago and so you you typically are going over these places. Want you to go over to Discord and join a community. Where your wallet id will get whitelisted and at a given time you’ll be able to go in and usually mint or create 1 or 2 You know Nfts now at the time these things are kind of like buying a blind bag.

28:37.56

Matt Watson

You did this with the rubber ducks right? You did this with the rubber ducks. Yes.

28:39.29

Matt DeCoursey

Like a you know blind box or something I did oh totally? Yes, yeah yeah, the rubber duck bath party. Yeah, so so you go in and you meant one and you you know which will be like point 0 for ethereum. However, much that’s worth that day.

28:56.94

Matt Watson

Hundred and sixty dollars or know hundred and twenty dollars

28:58.73

Matt DeCoursey

And then when they get to certain when they get to certain levels or numbers of things mented. They will then reveal what you’ve got so in my case I did I’ve mened a rubber duck which and I mean and it’s not great, but.

29:05.17

Matt Watson

Um, it was pretty late. It’s not as cool as the grandpa Ape the grandpa Ape was way cooler. Yeah.

29:16.53

Matt DeCoursey

So the the great ball apes are cool now with the duck though. The best part about that was I got to send pictures of it to people and say here’s my duck pick that’s been the most valuable part of it. So my so my duck. Yeah.

29:27.12

Matt Watson

Ah, yeah, ah.

29:35.78

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, it’s the only kind of duck pick. You’re allowed to send and not be a creep. It is safe for work. So my duck which is a baseline of a rubber ducky. He’s got a band-aid on his bill. He’s wearing a chain like a true chain chain.

29:37.39

Matt Watson

Yes, it’s safe for work. It’s okay, yeah.

29:54.36

Matt DeCoursey

He has a tattoo of an anchor on him and he has a scar near his eye. Oh and he’s also wearing rabbit ears now with that. He’s the 400 he’s the 460 third rarest duck.

29:59.20

Matt Watson

Ah, so is he super rare sounds super rare. Okay.

30:11.23

Matt DeCoursey

Out of ten thousand Now here’s the thing with this so you’re like what the fuck is. It’s exactly what I’m thinking and you can only imagine what my wife said when I showed her my duck pick. Um hey I sent you a duck pickic too. Yeah I wasn’t even drunk when I did it. So yeah.

30:22.51

Matt Watson

Ah so yeah scars and all wearing the bunny ears. Yeah, that’s yeah, okay.

30:30.44

Matt DeCoursey

Well so well so here’s the thing because I’m I’m a man of the people I also gave a duck to our CO daryl Blackburn because Darrel and I have worked together for a dozen years and we’re inherently competitive so I gave it to them before they hatched so that that ah turned into.

30:36.23

Matt Watson

Oh.

30:48.26

Matt DeCoursey

Days worth of comments of I’m positive. My duck is going to be better and bigger than your duck. Yeah right I kind of like that too. Yeah I kind of like that too. So so with that.

30:52.44

Matt Watson

You know what people love these blind box kind of things like my kids love them too and and so Nfts are yeah.

31:03.20

Matt DeCoursey

The the interesting part with the ducks is so the ducks actually have an interactive thing. They actually have a website and they do a bath party so you can go put your duck in the bath and then it comes out a different duck now.

31:08.96

Matt Watson

Oh my god.

31:17.12

Matt DeCoursey

I’m sitting at number 4 63 man so I got everything to lose so I didn’t bathe my duck but Darrel did and he moved up about a thousand points in rarity that’s about as as as fun and interesting as you’re going to get with ducks. So let me see what I bought I’ve bought I meant to the grandpa ape.

31:21.55

Matt Watson

Anyway.

31:35.66

Matt DeCoursey

So I bought that blind I bought the one that you see on my profile now just because I bought an angry Pit bull which that apparently gets me into I So if I was in L La I could have gone to the angry Pit Bullll Club party which actually looked pretty cool that I don’t live in L a.

31:43.42

Matt Watson

Ah.

31:55.56

Matt DeCoursey

Um I bought a cartoon I bought what was called a roode kid and that like all these things hatched now here’s the here’s the here’s the problem Matt I am definitely not ahead when it comes to the value on these things I mean this experiment.

32:00.74

Matt Watson

Oh my god.

32:08.97

Matt Watson

Yeah, yeah.

32:14.45

Matt DeCoursey

Which I may have to invoice startup hustle to cover my losses on has not been that he’s cool. Yeah yeah.

32:17.27

Matt Watson

I mean it’s a crapsshoot right? like some of you buy because they’re super cool like seriously the grandpa ape on your Twitter is super cool like he’s cool like he’s cool, right? Um now I could just steal the image and change my Twitter to look the same as yours and I didn’t pay a hundred bucks or whatever it cost to buy that.

32:31.30

Matt DeCoursey

Right? Well, you’ve seen my angry pitball as well, right? He is pretty cold. Yeah yep, well.

32:36.10

Matt Watson

Nft. Yeah, yeah, that those are pretty cool too. But the but otherwise it’s a lot of speculation on whether or not these things will be worth money someday. But there’s a lot of people that are making money doing this. They somehow like. Get into these projects and they buy random ones and you know they buy a hundred of them and like 10 of them end up being worth a bunch of money later or something is just crazy now.

32:57.58

Matt DeCoursey

It’s usually not a quick flip though I mean that’s the thing so like let’s talk about board Ape So Board Ape had ten they minted 10000 images of those those you could buy those for so just so couple hundred several hundred dollars for ah a while right? and then.

33:11.21

Matt Watson

Yeah, yeah.

33:14.79

Matt DeCoursey

So then what they do here is so this is where this has to have some when there’s some downstream benefit that occurs to owning this token. So after that they then created the mutant Ape Yacht Club

33:26.84

Matt Watson

Um, yeah.

33:29.99

Matt DeCoursey

So if you were a board aholder you got a Mutin Ape or you got something like a like a chemistry thing and when you combined them with your other ape you they were then a Mutin Ape was born or something now they’ve had the board. Ape Kennel Club a couple other things now when board ape ah released ape coin all these people got free tokens and and like honestly a fair amount like ah, a board. Ape Yacht Club holder which some of those could be purchased this little. This is so crazy as little as about. Ah, Quarter million dollars yeah for for a picture of an ape. That’s honestly not as cool as the one that I have on my Twitter profile. That’s not actually a real one. But if you got that those people got like $100000 worth of of ape coin and were able to turn around and sell that.

34:09.20

Matt Watson

As craving.

34:24.81

Matt DeCoursey

On exchanges like coinbase right away. So.

34:27.59

Matt Watson

Yeah, and there were some other weird advantages like you could go to parties and like some other weird things if you own board apes and and I think that’s some of what snoopdog was doing right? like I don’t know what the hell you got, but it was like $5000 or something but it also got you like a ticket. To a show or a backstage pass or like some things like that and that makes more sense right? because when you’re buying these nfts they have other tangible things to them. There’s not just buying only the art itself.

34:48.35

Matt DeCoursey

Yep! sister.

34:53.82

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, and that’s what I want to pivot to because this is where I this is where I think this really has legs. So I think that shit liked the buying and selling and all right? So the duck right now. The hope is with the duck is that the duck has babies. And that somewhere this summer in my digital wallet I wake up one day and I’ve got a couple other ducks so kind of like what board ape did they turned ten thousand into twenty thousand so here’s the thing the creator wants to sell more because the hype is going.

35:13.49

Matt Watson

Okay. And that.

35:27.78

Matt DeCoursey

But they they can’t water down the people that originally supported it so they give them a free one and then they multiply so now they can give everyone 10000 and then they’ll sell 10000 more

35:31.41

Matt Watson

Right? So so so that sounds ah with the ducks there sounds a lot like what one of the original big Nft projects was that’s still out there and that’s still big is cryptokitties. So cryptokitties was one of the first ones and I remember this a few years ago.

35:45.57

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, yeah.

35:51.19

Matt Watson

And I thought then I’m like what in the hell. But basically you get kitties and then you breed them together and they grow and they get bigger and you have different versions of kitties and whatever but they’re sort of all just collectibles but people want rare kitties right? and so that’s another use that people do is is like this. It’s sort of like a game of of. Ah, breeding Kitties right? And then you have you have other games that are real similar but they’re actually more game games like Axy Infinity is the big one where you buy Axes and.

36:17.13

Matt DeCoursey

His.

36:20.97

Matt Watson

Um, you can use them to fight or whatever and then you find things in the game and then you can take those things you find in the game and you can sell them and you actually make money playing the game and. Your axes get better and level up and then you can sell them and make money and you can create new ones just like the cryptokitties right? like you’re like breeding new cats and you can sell them and there’s like this whole like other like marketplace of like this like it’s It’s like a weird thing.

36:38.94

Matt DeCoursey

Yep.

36:44.40

Matt DeCoursey

Right? So there’s got to be something that goes downstream with that and that’s a really important part of this so then there are a lot of things. So let’s talk about Gary Vee for a second. So Gary Vee has been a real gary vaynerchuk if you’re not familiar known as Gary Vee so Gary’s super famous. Um, a lot of it for being an entrepreneur and giving advice. But so this is where I think a lot of this really does have legs. So Gary’s had all right? So he does vcon that’s like his convention for marketing and entrepreneurship stuff you have to own a vcon nftt to get in. Um, he’s also attaching tangible things. So like you could buy an nftt off of his site or somewhere that it was like 50 grand and he’ll be on your podcast once a year for 2 years or you know so there’s like so some of that is like. For example I’ll just use use this as an example, if.

37:33.42

Matt Watson

Yeah.

37:40.65

Matt DeCoursey

Startup hustle. So all right? So our our listeners and our audience have been on the rise right? So we could if we wanted to issue 20 hustle coins that each one was good for sponsoring an episode much like canva did today and maybe you buy those for. $1500 each and you know matt since we’re all about getting headed to the moon. You know, right? now we get about 150000 downloads a month. But maybe you buy that and you know what I’m going to sit on it because I like these guys and I like startup hutle I think they’re going to be a half a million or a million lessons a month in a year and maybe that maybe that tangible value of sponsoring an episode is the $1500 looks like peanuts when the show’s that big later down the road so you see a lot of things like I’ve seen other people like actually one of the founders of opensee. You can buy an nft from him that’s 30 minutes of advice about your crypto startup. So I did stuff like that I think that’s pretty cool and like so you look at some you look at some of the things like how do you fund or create something. So.

38:42.34

Matt Watson

Yeah yep, so.

38:55.36

Matt DeCoursey

What I just described with like the theoretical hustle coin like maybe you know maybe you buy those and you say hey you know what’s this going to be worth in a couple years if this show gets really big because the difference because I’ll tell you what $1500 an episode. Would be a value for something that’s getting a million lessons a month

39:12.84

Matt Watson

Oh yeah, so there’s there’s a few other things to think about with Nfts so one of the cool things about them is they’re all in code right? We talked about that a little bit earlier. They’re smart contracts on the blockchain now. What’s really awesome is let’s say you were the the people who did the duck party or whatever and and. You allow people to menth all the Nfts the rubber duck bath party now you can actually write code into the smart contracts that say okay, if those images are sold later on opensee I get a 5 % commission or whatever later and that is some of the cool stuff about nfts is.

39:33.77

Matt DeCoursey

Rubber Rubber duck bath party. Yeah Rubber duck bath party. Yeah.

39:48.46

Matt DeCoursey

Yep.

39:52.13

Matt Watson

Those kind of long-lasting effects of of the code and how the code operates now. Let’s take let’s take that same example and move it to a whole different industry. So let’s say I am the Kansas City Chiefs and I sell my tickets for $300 well if those were nfts on the blockchain now if you take those same tickets and you sold them on stubhub for thousand dollars they could write it into the code that they get a cut of the secondary market when those tickets are sold again later which would be super cool for the chiefs right? They’d be like okay cool if the game blows up and they. You know the tickets go for a crazy amount later I get another like second second you know piece of the apple. So there’s there’s some really cool things that that other use cases for enough t’s because of the code you can write into these contracts.

40:35.49

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, and that’s I mean no doubt on that and that’s you know that’s where so where you know we mentioned earlier the lot of this stuff. Yeah, circulating through different exchanges some of the more popular ones are open c. Rare there’s one called foundation those are some of the the bigger ones that we that we talked about now you know I got to tell you it’s not difficult to make a one-off and Nft ah doing the layered ones. And you know I’ve been playing around with some of that stay tuned. We’ll see if anything occurs with that. But you know with this you know I really did Matt and I have embraced this whole process which which there was ah a learning curve that came with this for sure like I hadn’t really been like a digital wallet guy. You know I mean I’ve had ah had an own crypto but it’s always lived in the exchanges I haven’t had it in a wall I had to learn a little bit about that now one of the things that so we’re talking about and the nftt thing now. There’s there’s ah, a weak side to this that I see expose a lot. So. In order to just understand the process I sent you I transferred you a Jpeg that cost me forty bucks these are known as these are known as gas fees and and it is it was not cheap.

41:41.63

Matt Watson

Um, on the ethereum blockchain. Yeah Ethereum is very expensive to use.

41:55.67

Matt DeCoursey

And you know so that that’s that’s an issue there so in some of these cases. So my grandpa Ape the one on my Twitter profile. Once again, if you want go to see that it’s at at at de coi mat and Twitter um, so that costs me as much to that cost me as much to buy as it did to transfer.

42:11.42

Matt Watson

Well, that’s why a lot of people are also doing nftts on other blockchains like polygon or sallana and avalanch all at Anna all these other ones. Do.

42:14.86

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah yep, yep, see teasos has been a popular one like that’s one that’s really come up now. The the reason for that is exactly what we just mentioned. It’s cheaper and it’s also there’s an environmental component That’s the issue people have with bitcoin is that bitcoin’s just really weight just wasteful when it comes to the amount of computing power and electricity and everything that it that it takes to create so you’re seeing a lot of these things pop up like teasos. For example, just sponsored Manchester united

42:30.82

Matt Watson

Is the mining. Yep.

42:48.25

Matt DeCoursey

You know and you’re going to start seeing this stuff everywhere is the point and I mean this is ah you know we’re talking about so our our friend and past guest Travis Wright who’s the host of the bad crypto podcast and has been a leader in this.

43:00.97

Matt Watson

And the nifty podcast. Oh yeah, there’s also the nifty podcast which is only about Nfts. Yeah.

43:04.78

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, and I always does he have a new one. Ah well so as I reached back out to Travis who’s from Kansas City our hometown and and a hell of a guy and a hell of a royals fan I love the fact that every time I see Travis pictured all around the world. He’s always wearing a royals hat.

43:21.99

Matt Watson

Um, hey yeah him and Paul Rudd

43:24.28

Matt DeCoursey

Um, he’s like the only one outside of Kansas City so so thank you? Yeah yeah, yeah, true, true. But yeah as I went back to invite him I had a message from him a year and a half ago that it was like hey bro. You need to start buying nfts there’s ah, there’s a big blue sea of profitability out there in the future now. Um I know and I didn’t listen I could have I could have retired off of Jpeg’s man and you know speaking of retiring. Um.

43:42.84

Matt Watson

He was right I didn’t either.

43:54.20

Matt DeCoursey

You know I’d like all of you to go to http://canva.com so they want to continue sponsoring startup hustle. So I once again, want to give a big thank you to today’s sponsor that’s canva go to http://canva.com with canva you can work together from wherever you can get on the same page as your team with seamless real-time collaboration. Ah so real question is what what are you going to design today and you’re going to explore and start designing for free at http://canva.com some of the things that I’ve used canva before just in the last month now I’ve made social media posts I created so I created the sponsorship proposal presentation for canva. Using canva I thought that was I thought that was and a nifty touch I’ve created ah used it for a ton of social. So Matt was joking we actually had at 1 point some different designers and stuff like that and I was outclassing them with canva.

44:30.73

Matt Watson

Sounds appropriate. Yeah.

44:47.73

Matt Watson

You really were true story.

44:49.43

Matt DeCoursey

And that’s why Matt was joking. Yeah, but great social media posts if you can drag and drop and upload anything you can create it so it’s a pretty cool platform have you used it. Yeah, just makes a lot of stuff simple and I appreciate that because I think one of the things I have a hard time with as an entrepreneur sometimes is.

44:56.54

Matt Watson

Oh yeah, yeah, I’ve used it before.

45:07.87

Matt DeCoursey

Visualizing what’s going on in my head like creating something that someone else can look at so I’ve even used it to just make simple wire frames and stuff like that because it’s fast quick and easy and I’ve used it to crop you out of several images.

45:13.41

Matt Watson

Yeah, absolutely.

45:23.33

Matt Watson

So another another part of nfcs. Yeah yeah, I’m going to crop you out. So another part of Nfts we haven’t really talked about that is probably 1 of the best use cases for them is the metaverse.

45:25.30

Matt DeCoursey

I Mean you’re gonna you’re gonna move on from that going to move on from that at that point.

45:39.32

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, yeah.

45:41.45

Matt Watson

And as we all know Facebook has changed their name to meta and they have their own metaverse and then on the blockchain you have other metaverses like sandbox and de central land and then and there’s also lots of other things that are. Sort of metaverse related that aren’t really on the blockchain like roblox or fortnite or like other things. Maybe you could consider kind of all related. But basically when you really think about the metaverse. You also think about this idea of maybe owning digital land. Or digital things like you mentioned earlier like people own shoes or there’s people that own like purses and so like there’s some lady that got sued because she was making like digital birkin bags. Were for sale on de centralal land or something and then berkin or whoever the hell it is that makes those things that owns that company went after her because she was making digital birkins. Um, but there’s like this whole world of like ah like. You know, virtual reality world and you can buy land in it and buy places or build stores or do whatever you want to do and you can buy digital assets in those and all those assets and all that land are basically nfts under the covers like the technology that’s powering that that says I own this land is actually an Nft. That says that I own the rights to it have you ever messed with any of that stuff.

46:53.60

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, well I did and you know so Matt sent me a note just now that said it seems like our wtf Nft episode turned into nftt art. We’re actually going to do. And the reason that we’ve focused on that more so than not is. That’s what’s really booming right now in a lot of cases in in our series. We’re going to get into nft music Nft art like even the dark side of Nfts like we’re going to go all the way down the list now. The reason that so I think we did actually.

47:14.50

Matt Watson

That’s what people talk about.

47:27.76

Matt DeCoursey

Effectively cover like what is an Nft and though we turn into some of this is is kind of a a predecessor to our next episode which is specifically nftr now you ask about the metaverse thing so that was actually on my notes here. It would go ahead and start to wrap this episode up but I actually bought an Nft with something called the bapes clan.

47:28.56

Matt Watson

Yeah.

47:45.93

Matt DeCoursey

And they were trying to sell 10000 of these because they wanted it all all the money to pool in together to basically invest and buy into metaversed based businesses. Okay, so with that they didn’t even make their 10000 men they stalled out at like 20300. They had an issue with menting it. It just really kind of like got suspect for a lot of people now with that one of the things that was supposedly going to occur was at 1 point Matt I apparently may have owned an apartment in the metavers.

48:13.47

Matt Watson

Um, ah yeah.

48:17.80

Matt DeCoursey

Is going to be a bachelor pad something but now with that when I saw that that didn’t catch Steam. That’s actually one of the ones I sold off because you know some of these things are going to come out and they’re going to I don’t know like I mean a lot of the people I’ve talked to. But honestly think a lot of this stuff’s just gonna end up being worth nothing. Yeah.

48:36.52

Matt Watson

Yeah, yeah, I think that’s probably the case like most things right? like 90% of it won’t be worth anything and like the whole meta rediverse site of this is interesting because now you’ve got like these big brands like banks and stores and all that stuff buying property in the metaverse because. They want you to be able to go to decentr land and then when you were near there. You can go to like a virtual bank of America or something and get customer service or whatever like a boutique experience in 3 d virtual reality I guess in the virtual world like I get your I kind of understand. But is also just sort of weird like mye my son has a um, ah quest ah vr headset and it’s pretty damn cool I’m going to tell you for like $300 it’s cool and most people don’t realize Facebook now meta sold more of those last year than Microsoft Sold Xboxes

49:20.93

Matt DeCoursey

Yeah, yeah.

49:31.10

Matt DeCoursey

Oh Wow yeah.

49:33.91

Matt Watson

Which is crazy but they’re super cool and the the virtual reality stuff has come way down in price now sort it used to be you had of like a really fast computer and a really good video card and had have a wired headset that like wirely you know was wired to it and all that kind of crap now for like $300 you get a headset that’s It’s fully wireless and you could do some like wander around your house and do weird shit and play games online and stuff and it’s pretty cool and I have to say that wearing the virtual reality headset definitely feels totally different. It feels pretty realistic like I could sort of see like some use cases like oh I’m at louis vuitton I guess and I’m like trying to figure out if I want to buy this purse or whatever it is. And it feels way more realistic than like watching a video on youtube like I can see some of the use cases for some of it. But I also don’t understand why you have these people that will spend like millions of dollars for property in the metaverses like I don’t really understand that like they think the land’s gonna be worth a lot of money but that’s like a whole nother thing like you know like you’re. Like people are buying grandpa apes and ducks. There’s people buying land and they think the land is going to be worth something so it’s and they’re all enough teas.

50:35.89

Matt DeCoursey

Well I get I get I get that on some level because it’s not about what you see it’s about who sees you when it comes to a lot of real estate meaning like you know you look at like you know you’ve been to times square in New York and you know there’s just so much traffic through there. That’s why there’s signs in everything everywhere like go to Tokyo.

50:51.10

Matt Watson

Yeah, yeah.

50:55.17

Matt DeCoursey

I mean man like you want to talk about not giving your kids screen time I mean you’d have to put a blindfold on them in Japan you know and so anyway Matt I think I know I think we we got started on this and once again, you know we’re going to be back every week with an episode. We got about 10 of these I have a feeling that might turn into more who knows.

50:59.34

Matt Watson

Yeah, yep.

51:14.41

Matt DeCoursey

Um, but we’re gonna yeah and and I’m enjoying it already and you know the next step. So yeah, we wanted to just give you a basic overview. We did kind of tease the next episode where we’re going to go right into specifically nftt art. We’re going to cover music real estate I mean we got it all. What.

51:14.42

Matt Watson

It’s a fun topic.

51:31.80

Matt DeCoursey

Are we going to cover farts and tacos because I didn’t see those on the list. But I think we do tacos first which will probably result in farts.

51:35.15

Matt Watson

I’m going to have to go Google that.

51:40.49

Matt Watson

Especially as especially if it’s Taco Bell yeah let’s see it.

51:44.10

Matt DeCoursey

Well I’ll see you down the road then Matt.